Below is the text of a speech made by Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, made at City Hall in London on 27 November 2015.

Thank you, Munira [Mirza, Deputy Mayor of London] for that introduction. And thank you, Boris [Johnson, Mayor of London], for organising and hosting this fantastic conference.

It really is a pleasure to be here at a conference with such a sense of energy and purpose – and such a sense of pride in the work you do and the difference you make.

I want to talk about educational excellence. About how London schools are already giving thousands of children an excellent education.

About what we need to do if we’re serious about excellence everywhere. And I want to speak directly to you – the current and future leaders of education in London and beyond – about the opportunity for, and the importance of, leadership.

I want to make a reality of educational excellence everywhere. This is more than an easy phrase. We spent a lot of the last 5 years talking about what we mean by and how we realise educational excellence. For the next 5 years, my focus is on what it takes to make this happen everywhere, across the country from Barking to Blackburn, and from Westminster to Wiltshire.

The reforms of the last Parliament re-introduced rigour to our education system and placed high expectations back at the heart of our all schools.

We removed qualifications from the performance tables that weren’t respected by employers and universities and instead began the process of introducing gold-standard qualifications that would equip young people to succeed in the modern world, and on the world stage.

We introduced the EBacc to encourage more schools to offer pupils a rigorous academic core – and I’m struck and impressed that London secondary schools are leading the way.

Because as your pupils grow up, they will need to stand their own with their peers from Shenzen and Chennai. And from Kraków, and from Frankfurt. And more.

For some people, this is a scary prospect – but it’s also an exciting one, and I have confidence and pride in the talent and potential of our young people.

And education is just as much about instilling those virtues and values, and allowing young people to develop their own unique talents, as it is about the grades they receive at the end of school.

A well-educated child or young person should be well rounded, with a range of interests, a real sense of character and grit, equipped for adult life.

Since I took up this role, I’ve visited almost 80 schools and met over 1,000 teachers – and I know that this is something we all agree on.

Sally [Coates] dedicates a whole chapter of her book [‘Headstrong: 11 lessons of school leadership’ (2015)] to the importance of developing the whole child. She describes how “our pursuit of academic excellence can never be extricated from the challenge of developing responsible, mature, compassionate citizens who are able to channel their talents towards healthy, productive ends”. I entirely agree with her.

So I’ve taken every opportunity to champion this broader education, through awards and grants for schools and projects that help to develop character; by promoting cadets in schools and the National Citizen Service.

And I’m pleased and proud to make a point of celebrating and backing the work that schools do – such as at Goldbeaters Primary School, School 21 or Mulberry School for Girls and many other schools I’ve visited. These schools debunk completely the notion that there is somehow any tension between academic success and character education – in fact they demonstrate that the 2 are mutually dependent and inextricably intertwined.

So, after 5 years of reform and challenge, we know what educational excellence looks like and how it can be unlocked. Our challenge is to make a reality of excellent education everywhere. And London schools show what can be done – including in some of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and communities in the country.

Schools across London prove that there is no place for the old excuses about ‘kids like these’. And you make that point more powerfully than any politician could. We all know about schools like King Solomon Academy and Mossbourne – they’re famous nationally for the quality of the education they offer.

But I’m sure that each of you will know other schools that achieve just as much. You show working hard not only gives children from every background the best possible start in life, but also power to transform whole communities, leading the way in instilling a culture of aspiration, ambition and refusing to settle for second best.

London’s academies and chains of schools demonstrate this transformative power of this approach in everything they do.

Groups of schools like the Ark and Harris academies are spreading excellence, and at the same time providing the structures so that teachers and heads can focus on the core of their jobs, allowing us to open new career paths and opportunities for great teachers, and for great school leaders.

Just as there isn’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’ school, so there shouldn’t be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ career path for teachers. And, again, Sally – your career is a great example of some of the opportunities that being a teacher opens.

And, of course, the London Challenge model and legacy lives on. Education in London has been transformed over the last 15 to 20 years. Important networks and ideas are now owned by schools yourselves, like the Challenge Partners.

And the core elements are now the basis for the self-improving school-led system we want to spread across the rest of the country – with the expansion of Teach First, and the networks of teaching schools and of national and local leaders of education.

But a strong school system requires sound funding. We know that there can be no better investment in the future of our country than a good education.

That’s why, thanks to the difficult decisions we’ve taken elsewhere, the Chancellor was able to confirm in the Spending Review that we would meet our manifesto commitments to protect core spending per pupil and to maintain the pupil premium at current rates – and that the core school budget will be protected in real terms to 2019-2020.

We have been able to go beyond that, and similarly protect the base-rate funding received for every 16-to-19 student, at its current level, to the end of this Parliament.

None of this is to say that schools will not have to find efficiencies. Despite being more generously protected than most of the public sector, you as school leaders will be challenged to make your budgets go further. We will help you to do that – supporting smarter procurement and better sharing of best practice.

The introduction of a national funding formula will also mean change. It is clearly unfair that a school in one part of the country can attract over 50% more funding than an identical school, with pupils who have identical characteristics but in another part of the country. We need to rectify that.

This is about transparency, and about fairness – and so schools in London which have very high levels of deprivation or other additional needs will be funded to meet those needs.

Let me be clear, that while we will consult on the exact formula, we will keep a very close watch to make sure that we are earmarking the right level of funding for deprivation, to ensure that those needs can continue to be met. And, of course, there will also be a geographical element to the formula that will recognise the higher wage costs that London faces.

Before I finish, I want to say a few words to you as school leaders.

You do a phenomenal job. Your work is important and inspiring. Although I’m sure there are days – and weeks – when everything feels like a grind, you lead schools that transform lives. In your schools, children grow up. You are their teachers and their role models, and you guide and support them through towards adulthood. You have a lot to be proud about.

I am delighted that this month’s data shows teacher recruitment starting to rise with over 1,000 more post-graduates starting training this year, compared to last.

There’s a lot more to do to make sure we’re recruiting, training and retaining the teachers that we need, especially in key subjects and in some areas of the country. But I take these figures as a good sign, and I hope that they reflect a greater recognition that teaching is a fantastic profession and an exciting career to join.

The programme will launch next September, with a pilot of 100 teachers and middle leaders in the North West of England. By 2020 it will have deployed 1,500 outstanding teachers and middle leaders to underperforming schools in areas of the country that struggle to attract, recruit and retain high quality teachers.

And I want to encourage each of you to think about the leadership role that you play with pride and with ambition. I know you want the best for your own school and pupils, and that you work hard to make a reality of your goals.

If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage each of you to think about the opportunities to share more widely and take a lead in the school-led system. You could form a partnership with one or more other schools. You might take a leading role within your existing chain. Or you might think about how you could share what works here with schools and emerging chains beyond London.

Deputy heads – your heads won’t thank me for this – but you too should be thinking about when and how you want to take the next step.

In addition to those of you here at this fantastic conference, I also want us all to do more to nurture and develop the leaders of the future. I want to encourage talented teachers – and especially those from under-represented groups – to take this step, and to tackle the real or perceived barriers that hold them back.

This is the right thing to do for individuals, and for the profession as a whole. And, more importantly, it’s essential if we want to make a reality of educational excellence everywhere.

I know that these aren’t easy jobs. I see and hear the challenges you face when I visit schools, talk to school leaders, and when I respond to emails and letters from teachers and heads. We shouldn’t pretend that leadership like yours is easy, because it isn’t. But it is important, valuable and rewarding.

I will continue to challenge schools to do better. It’s what parents rightly expect of me. I will challenge you to give more pupils an excellent start – and especially to do so for those pupils who we currently fail. I simply wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.

But I can promise you that I will do it with respect, and with a recognition that it isn’t an easy thing to ask. And I’ll do it because we all share a fundamental belief that every child deserves an excellent education.

As London schools show – great teachers, great heads and great groups of schools can achieve phenomenal things. Thank you, for all that you do.

Below is the text of a speech made by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Ed Vaizey, to the Local Government Association Conference on 7th March 2013.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I’d like to thank Flick Rea for her kind introduction and for inviting me to speak at your annual conference, bringing together so many of you who work so hard to promote British culture, heritage, tourism and sport.

These are not easy times to be in Government, at either national or local level. Faced with a crippling budget deficit, we are faced with difficult choices, some of which are painful to make. But we have to cut our cloth.

But unique challenges also bring unique opportunities. While we must all learn how to do more with less, it offers us the chance to think differently about how we go about delivering. Yesterday’s model may not necessarily be the right template for tomorrow.

That said, our creative and cultural sector is in rude health. The success of last year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Cultural Olympiad demonstrated to the world the richness of what it is to be British in the 21st Century, with all its quirks and eccentricity.

That’s why our creative and cultural sector is such a vital element in delivering economic growth, by encouraging economic investment through tourism and business. We have seen this at the Sage and Baltic in Gateshead, the Turner Contemporary in Margate and the Liverpool City of Culture. These are perfect examples of local regeneration being driven by culture.

So in tough economic times, the Government is committed to safeguarding and nurturing our investment in culture, heritage and sport.

In order to do this, we restored the share of arts and heritage funding from the National Lottery from 16% to 20% each. This increased chunk, combined with growing Lottery sales, means Arts Council England is now projected to receive £262 million in 2015, that’s over £100 million more than it received prior to May 2010.

The Heritage Lottery Fund too, is now projected to receive £379 million in 2015, £160 million more than prior to 2010.

And Sport England’s projected income will be £235 million compared with £134m prior to 2010.

This all means that almost £3 billion will go to the arts over the lifetime of this Parliament, a billion in Lottery funding combined with almost two billion in direct Government funding.

But state support is only one side of the coin, so to speak. Arts, culture and heritage cannot exist in isolation at a time of unprecedented economic challenges. As I said a moment ago, we must seize this opportunity to take a fresh look at how we deliver.

That’s why the Government is supporting the sector to develop a stronger emphasis on philanthropy, including the £100m Catalyst Fund with Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

We’ve also introduced a reduced rate of inheritance tax from 40% to 36% for those estates where 10% or more is left to charity, to encourage legacy giving to cultural organisations. This was also the focus of one of three reports published by the Government at the end of 2012, alongside proposals to boost fundraising capacity outside of London, and exploring the scope for harnessing digital technology.

The pursuit of philanthropy is not a sticking plaster solution. It is about the pursuit of a long-term strategy to strengthen the financial resilience of the cultural sector.

In the case of endowments, this might take a century to bear full fruit, and it is for that very reason we must get cracking, to promote a broader culture of giving.

It is our ambition that that the four strands; philanthropy, earned income, commercial revenues, and state funding; brought together, will in turn attract other sources of investment.

I see so many excellent examples of how this partnership approach, combined with fresh thinking, is delivering results.

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Matilda is a perfect example of how edgy, innovative and publicly-supported art can flourish into a critical and commercial hit.

It took seven years of development by the RSC to create Matilda. Public subsidy enabled the company to take the risk on two brilliant writers, new to musicals. Today, total sales now exceed £24 million, with the advance standing at £4.5 million. It is the latest in a long line of valuable cultural exports that emerged as a result of public investment.

That’s why I can assure you that culture and the arts are important to the Government. It seems ridiculous that I would have to state such a self-evident truth. I believe it is regrettable to observe some of the scaremongering, suggesting our arts and cultural sector is somehow “at risk.”

So where does all this rubbish suggesting: “The Arts are in Crisis,” come from? Let’s look at the facts:

This year’s Arts Development UK survey, looking at local authority arts spending, found that the average local authority budget for the arts is a fraction under £385,000 – an increase in cash terms on last year’s levels.

Every £1 spent by local authorities on the arts brings in an extra £3.83 of additional funding. That suggests leverage funding of almost £1.5 million per local authority.

Local authorities remain one of the major funders of arts in England and Wales, with an estimated spend of £134 million on direct arts services.

During the five years of this parliament, Arts Council of England will put more than £90 million into the 28 English regional producing theatres.

And in 2011 a £45 million Strategic Touring Programme was launched, to bring arts to people all around the country not just those in main centres.

Plus the £37 million Creative People and Places fund will focus investment in parts of the country where involvement in the arts is below average.

And just yesterday I announced that 11 areas of the UK are bidding to become this country’s City of Culture in 2017.

British culture in crisis? I don’t think so.

In this context I welcome the LGA’s publication on the relationship between arts and growth. It demonstrates that where local authorities recognise this relationship, investment at a local level has been maintained. Arts and heritage and its links with tourism are fundamental to supporting growth.

To give you an example of this: Milton Keynes Council invested £197,000 in the 2012 Summer of Culture and International Festival, which in turn levered an additional £1 million from participating organisations. The total economic impact is estimated to be £6.4 million.

Another is the 2010 economic impact study of the Anvil Arts Trust in Basingstoke, which runs The Anvil, The Haymarket and The Forge. I highlight this one not simply because it is in the Secretary of State’s constituency, but rather because it gets most of its funding from the local council, which found that the Trust generates a gross economic impact of £6.2 million. The study went some way to help councillors understand the importance of Anvil Arts as a sizeable economic entity, generating income and jobs.

And in their year as European City of Culture, Liverpool received 9.7 million additional visitors to the city which in turn resulted in over £735 million in additional visitor spend. Derry-Londonderry hope to have 2800 tourism jobs by 2020 as a legacy from their year as the first UK City of Culture.

Yesterday I announced the 11 cities and places which have put themselves forward to be the UK’s City of Culture in 2017. They are the ones that “Get It”. It’s only a shame that more don’t.

The recently signed partnership between VisitEngland and Arts Council England will result in both organisations jointly championing England’s cultural offer, enabling us to better co-ordinate activity, and supporting destinations with the potential to grow their economies by nurturing local culture.

Last November I met the Local Authority Heritage Champions at Painters Hall, and was particularly impressed at the work they do to ensure that heritage is underpinning their local authorities’ plans.

They are yet more examples of innovative thinking and working in partnership, to deliver real economic benefit.

Our rich heritage is rightly a source of great national pride. Our heritage is our hallmark and makes the UK distinctive in a globalised world. It is a tremendous draw for visitors too: 40% of leisure visitors to the UK cite our heritage as the major drawcard, a sign of our heritage delivering very real economic benefits. The heritage tourism sector is worth £12.4 billion a year to the UK, not only in entrance fees, but in pounds spent in shops, hotels and restaurants. That means jobs.

A fine example is Wakefield which has become a major visitor destination for Yorkshire. The area offers excellent attractions including the Hepworth Wakefield, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Theatre Royal, the National Coal Mining Museum for England and the National Trust’s Nostell Priory. These attractions combined received over a million visits in 2011/12, delivering £323m to the local economy, and creating 9,000 jobs.

So in growing our economy, our heritage and history give us an edge. And having an edge can sometimes make the difference between winning and losing.

But innovation and fresh thinking is delivering results in other parts of the cultural sector also: our libraries, where digital technology is being exploited to support economic growth and development.

Now, libraries; or the public library service to be precise, are another area which are occasionally deemed to be “In Crisis.”

So let’s look at some examples. Libraries in Northamptonshire are hosting Enterprise Hubs offering business start-up advice, job clubs and training workshops which are supporting the economic growth and development of the county.

In fact the concept has been so successful, the council is planning to extend the concept by setting up a ‘hatchery’ space in their libraries, providing business incubation for up to one year.

To help encourage young entrepreneurs they are allocating one of the Library business spaces to under 25s.

I’m delighted our library service continues to thrive and modernise. Local Authorities invested £820 million in libraries last year. Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester are all making major investments in their central libraries, and Birmingham’s will soon be the largest library in Europe when it opens this year.

In the spirit of fresh thinking, the Public Service Mutual model is offering another way to maintain the delivery of library, and other services. In York, work is underway developing the first staff-led, public service mutual in library and archive services, with help from the £10 million Mutuals Support Programme.

It’s an impressive undertaking: York’s libraries and archive service has around 120 staff and a budget of £2.4 million a year, providing 17 libraries, as well as archive and local history services. The project is developing a final business plan and aims to get council approval to spin out in June, and we will be sharing what can be learned from the project with other providers.

To support this growth, the Government has appointed a specialist adviser on libraries to work with local authorities and Arts Council England. I encourage you to engage with Yinnon Ezra over the coming months to consider different approaches to library service provision, and new ways of thinking about sustainability.

The Arts Council has established a £6 million fund to support culture in libraries. We have published the CIPFA comparative profile reports for the first time. We are piloting automatic membership for school children and young people.

And we are supporting a pilot £1.2 million project to turn six libraries into ‘incubators of innovation’ – to see them roll-out business support to towns and villages.

Libraries “In Crisis”? Again, I don’t think so.

But there can be no finer place to discuss arts and heritage than here in Chester with its rich cultural history.

Since becoming a new authority in 2009 Cheshire West and Chester has developed a clear plan to make the area economically and culturally richer by using culture as a catalyst to drive economic, social and community regeneration.

They will utilise the cultural offer to enhance the attractiveness and distinctive nature of market towns and rural area within the Borough, with a vision to deliver a new theatre and library complex, a Roman museum, and improvements to the visual arts infrastructure.

It’s yet another example of ambition and innovation delivering both cultural benefits and economic growth. And yet another example of the arts in the UK waving, not drowning.

The below speech was made by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Ed Vaizey, at the Cable Congress held in London on 5th March 2013.

Good morning everyone.

I would like to thank the organisers of the 2013 Cable Congress, and in particular the UK’s very own Virgin Media, for inviting me to speak today.

Before I begin, I must also say how pleased we all are that the 2013 Cable Congress is taking place here in London. We pride ourselves on the strength of the UK’s online economy, and it is, I think, appropriate that the Congress is taking place in one of the world’s most connected cities.

You will, I’m sure, be hearing at length about investments and new technologies from experts in the field. I would like to say a few words about this Government’s priorities in the online and telecommunications fields, what we are doing to support the tremendous investment in broadband, and where we go from here.

If I were to summarise the priorities, I would need only one word: Growth. Our number one aim is to get the British economy moving again and support the businesses, both large and small, that will drive this. And I believe that the digital, creative and communications industries have a key role in this.

We want to see continued investment in Britain’s online industries, but we also need to ensure that the whole British economy enjoys the digital services and connectivity it needs to innovate and expand into new markets. A truly connected Britain that is open for global business the cornerstone of our ambitions for growth.

The UK is already a world leader in the online economy, with the internet contributing over 8% of GDP. Our flagship businesses are tapping into global markets, and our consumers enjoy excellent choice and services when choosing their broadband and phones.

However, the pace of technological change is such that we cannot afford to stand still. We are doing well, but I want us to do even better.

Continued private investment is key to achieving this, and nowhere more so than the field of superfast broadband. If we are to build a world class connected Britain, investment in our broadband infrastructure must keep up with both technological innovations and the ever increasing requirements of business, and consumers.

While we are on the subject of investment, I should mention the planned takeover, subject to shareholder agreement, of Virgin Media by Liberty Global. First, I am of course delighted that this will bring a new major company headquarters to the UK. Second, I welcome the prospects this will bring to continue investment in Virgin Media’s cable network here in the UK. As I said earlier, this investment is what keeps the UK’s online economy moving forward. This represents a great opportunity for the broadband market in the UK and, in particular, the rest of Europe. This can only be good for creating a world-class connected Britain.

Firms like Virgin Media and BT lead the way when it comes to investing in our broadband infrastructure, and I must applaud the work they are doing and the capital they have committed. Virgin Media’s investment in doubling customers’ speeds is future proofing the network and opening up new opportunities for our online companies, and is only one part of its multi-billion pound programme.

BT is rolling out its optical fibre network deeper into the local market than ever before, and has developed new products like its fibre on demand packages. The UK market also supports many smaller firms, often investing significantly to deliver ultrafast services to local communities. The pace of change is impressive – BT is making fibre available to 100,000 new homes and businesses per week, and combined with Virgin’s upgrade figures, take-up of superfast services in the last quarter alone was well over 650,000.

In mobile broadband, we are seeing vital investment by mobile operators, first by EE with their launch of 4G last year and now by other operators in readiness for their nationwide rollout of 4G services later this year. It is this commercial investment that has driven innovation and growth within the sector, and we as Government are doing everything we can to support this work.

Our aim is to remove the barriers preventing investment and innovation, and demonstrate that Britain is one of the best places in the world to do business online. So we will remove barriers and red tape. We cannot allow rollout to be delayed by planning refusals, or confusion when carrying out street works, or by long running legal issues over access to private land.

Our goal is to provide certainty, to ensure the money invested in rollout is used to take superfast broadband further and not wasted on delays and disputes. It is important that the regulatory framework governing the telecoms sector is fit for purpose and competitive. While this of course sits with Ofcom, we are committed to ensuring the market fosters competition, supports multiple, innovative providers, and results in greater consumer choice.

We have also taken significant steps to support mobile broadband. The successful 4G spectrum auction, whose winners were announced two weeks ago, is a vital part of this. We directed Ofcom to proceed with the auction, and brokered agreement with the mobile operators to allow this not only to happen, but to happen 6 months early. Similarly, we are planning for the future by overseeing the release of significant bands of public sector spectrum to the market.

The pace of change in the world of mobile is very fast, and we are determined to ensure Britain is ready for the challenges ahead.

The Government is also intervening in areas where commercial investment is not viable, through a major investment programme of £1.2 billion of public money. Through this investment, and working in partnership with industry, we will see much faster speeds, millions more homes and businesses able to enjoy these speeds, and a market which boasts high competition and low prices, particularly compared to our European neighbours.

On this latter aspect, the UK’s broadband market is already in rude health. Ofcom’s European scorecard, which was published today shows that the UK currently benefits from low prices and a high degree of competition in the broadband market, and that the UK has the best deals available for consumers across a selection of pricing bundles in the major European economies.

It is important that rural areas are not left in the slow lane when it comes to broadband access. We are bringing superfast access to 90% of UK premises, and a minimum of 2 megabits per second to everyone else. Rapid progress is being made on the rural programme: 11 projects have now signed contracts, and are either in progress already or about to start work. The remaining projects are entering procurements at a rate of one per week, and all should have completed their procurement phase by this summer.

The Government’s investment is already delivering faster connections for consumers – I visited North Yorkshire in December to unveil their first active fibre cabinet, and last week saw the unveiling of the first Welsh cabinets in Bangor. It is worth noting that the Devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will all benefit from significant central government investment in their broadband infrastructure, delivering a key part of driving UK growth and investment.

Similarly, our £150m urban broadband programme – working closely with local authorities and the private sector – will ensure that our cities can compete with the best in the world. You just need to look at the success of Tech City here in London to see how establishing a digital hub with world class connectivity and expertise can spur today’s innovative idea into becoming the online business of tomorrow.

But we cannot create a world class connected Britain just by laying more fibre in the ground or building new base stations. It is also crucial that we get as many people as possible online enjoying the benefits presented by better connectivity, and also encourage British companies to expand and develop their internet-based operations. Ultimately it is users that will turn infrastructure investment into growth.

We are therefore ensuring that demand stimulation is incorporated into our Government-funded projects. The tireless work of Martha Lane Fox and Go ON UK, for example, has been vital in getting more people online and demonstrating how people’s lives can be changed for the better by embracing the digital world. We are exploring ways to encourage high speed takeup as part of our urban programme. And demand stimulation remains a key focus of all our local rural broadband projects, with a particular emphasis on SMEs.

It’s worth reflecting that, in a recent report on Britain’s broadband, the think tank Policy Exchange found that 79% of British businesses have a website, but only 36% allow online payments. So not only do we need more businesses online, but more businesses with the skills, expertise and confidence to branch into online sales and exploit the global marketplace.

But we are also well aware that doing more online presents challenges as well as opportunities. Embracing e-commerce will open up new markets, but also represents potential risks, for example around online fraud or website security. For consumers, the fear remains of personal data loss or online scams. This is why we are ensuring that the regulatory framework protects online businesses, customers and other users, while supporting a competitive and innovative market.

Then, there is content. While our brilliant, innovative creative industries are driving growth in this sector – generating over £36 billion every year – the Government is ensuring that we provide them with support by way of tax breaks for animation, video games, high end TV and the film industry.

Finally, let me repeat a point I made earlier: in building a world class connected Britain and supporting our internet economy, we are doing well, but the Government wants to ensure we are doing even better. This Government is committed to delivering the broadband infrastructure and services we need to compete with the best in the world.

Our rural projects are moving rapidly from procurement to spades in the ground, the spectrum licenses are in place to allow the rollout of 4G services this summer, and our reforms to cut the red tape facing providers are already underway. It is crucial that Government, regulators and commercial providers continue to work together to achieve our goals to increase demand and encourage innovative broadband usage. We have invested heavily in improving our infrastructure – let’s now make full use of it.

By working closely with the industry, I’m confident that we can realise our ambition of Britain as a world class connected country, a strong market for consumers, and a great place to do business.

The below speech was made by Ed Vaizey on Wednesday 23rd January 2013 in Oxford.

The Communications White Paper – Challenges and Successes of the last year

I am delighted to be back and speaking at the Oxford Media Convention again this year. I know that you will cover a lot of topics today, including Leveson, media plurality, the protection of children on-line and 4G spectrum and the changes that will bring.

What I would like to do this morning is set out some of the issues the Government intends to address in our forthcoming White Paper, to give you some insight into the issues that we think are important. Some of these issues, you will be glad to hear, overlap with your discussions later today, so we should be on the same wavelength.

But before I get into that, I wanted to reflect briefly on the UK media.

This has been one of the most challenging years. We have had Savile, Lord MacAlpine, the Leveson Report, the spotlight has been on failures. I want to talk about the success of the British media. The BBC covered the Olympics superbly. Channel 4 transformed forever the way the Paralympics are seen. The Mail Online became the most visited English language newspaper website in the world. There was record inwards investment in British film and television from the likes of Disney, Warner Brothers and Discovery. Skyfall became the highest grossing film of all time at the UK Box office. British consumers broke the £1 billion level in digital downloads. And the UK advertising industry continued to lead the world in pioneering new ways of digital advertising.

So there is a huge amount to be proud of, and I am proud to represent this sector in Government.

Framing the Paper

And it is on that note that I want to tell you about the White Paper that will come out later this year. The White Paper, when it is eventually published, will be the culmination of almost two years of discussions with industry and other stakeholders. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this discussion: in seminars, in responses to our discussion papers, on twitter and on the blog.

There is a clear message that has come out and that is the industry wants evolution rather than revolution.

There simply isn’t a great clamour for wide scale reform. People have told us that, for the most part, our regulatory framework is working well. Industry isn’t being choked by regulation – something borne out by the huge success of recent years. And consumers are embracing new formats and technology with more enthusiasm than almost anywhere else in the world, so regulation doesn’t seem to be stifling innovation.

So what are the issues we want to address? The White Paper will focus on three key areas: connectivity, content and consumer issues. I’m not going to tell you the detail what the White Paper will say – I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise – but I am going to sketch out the issues that we face in each of the key areas and how we are approaching them.

Connectivity

First, then, I want to talk about connectivity and the infrastructure that underlies the entire communications sector, sometimes literally. We have set our goal for the UK to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015. We are investing £830 million in digital infrastructure to achieve this, money which will support the roll out of high speed broadband in rural communities, key cities and mobile not-spots.

The issue of mobile infrastructure is particularly important right now. One part of this that you won’t have been able to avoid hearing about is the introduction of 4G – indeed you are discussing it later today. We already have 4G services from EE and the spectrum auction, currently taking place under the watchful eye of Ofcom, will set the ball rolling for the arrival of 4G in the spring from a choice of operators. This will maximise the value and benefit of this scarce spectrum resource.

But rolling out 4G isn’t enough. Spectrum has many uses and there is a real need for more spectrum to be freed up and for the spectrum available to be better used. It needs to be used more flexibly; it needs to be allocated and re-allocated faster; it needs to meet the requirements of emerging technologies. In short it needs to support businesses to let them deliver for consumers.

We already have the world’s most ambitious programme to release public sector spectrum. But the White Paper will look ahead, and focus on mechanisms to ensure that we have the spectrum we need to meet the challenges ahead.

Content

But great fixed and mobile connectivity is nothing without great content. That puts us in the UK in a fantastic position. Whether it is Television, Film, Radio or Video Games, the UK is leading the way in creating innovative, successful and entertaining content. I was delighted when I saw the report from the Commercial Broadcasters’ Association, showing that investment in UK TV increased by a third in 2012. Broadcast has set out the ‘Big ambitious and bold plans’ including major investment in UK content. It talks about:

“The launch of ‘London-based commissioning hubs’ by Discovery and National Geographic “

“Fox UK stepping up UK commissions … with an investment of £5m.”

Investment in content continues apace. We want to support this investment.

We want this level of success and investment not just to continue but to increase. That’s why we are introducing tax breaks for High end TV, animation and video games to sit alongside the tax breaks already in place for the film industry.

That is why we want to provide certainty to those investing in content. That is why we have renewed the Channel 3 and Channel 5 licences, to maintain the content requirements for our Public Service Broadcasters, protecting the delivery of the world class content that we value so much.

But this isn’t enough. We want the content market – the complex ecosystem of different organisations across the content production chain – to stay dynamic, flexible and responsive. We want a mix of businesses of various sizes and with difference specialisms. We want it to be competitive. So we will have to look at the impact of convergence on markets. We want to make sure that, where previously distinct markets now overlap, the regulations are appropriate and that historic regulatory differences don’t inhibit competition.

We also want to see a solution to the current situation on so-called retransmission fees where Public Service Broadcasters and Licence Fee payers have paid large amounts to satellite providers for the content to be carried. We’ve looked very carefully at arguments on both sides and recognise that this situation has evolved over time perhaps in a way we didn’t intend.

I welcome the steps Sky have taken so far to reduce retransmission fees to a much lower level. But we want them to go further, taking into account the undoubted value that PSB’s offer to satellite platforms and their viewers, so that there’s a level playing field – zero fees either way.

This would mirror the arrangement that is currently the case for PSBs and cable platforms, where no charges are made – an arrangement that we want to see this preserved. We’re looking closely at how we can help achieve this without allowing other kinds of services – which offer no support to PSBs and therefore ultimately no advantage to consumers – to benefit.

We’re not going to rush into a regulatory solution because we think there’s no reason the market shouldn’t be able to work out a fair equitable solution as things stand, but if the industry can’t find a way to stop imposing this cost on Licence Fee payers and PSBs, we will look at our options for intervention.

Consumers

The final area I want to turn to is consumers, one that I think is particularly important in an environment where new technologies, platforms and services are emerging all the time. We want to make sure we continue to have a regulatory system that provides adequate protection for consumers.

New products of every kind are providing great new opportunities for consumers: goods that people want, services that allow us to connect, socialise and work in ways that until recently we wouldn’t have thought possible. But with this comes new challenges. The regulations that are currently in place could never have envisaged the services that we now take for granted. So we need to update regulations where necessary to fill in these gaps, but also to update the framework, to allow the flexibility to respond to these challenges as they emerge, rather than all at once every ten years.

And, of course, action by industry itself has an incredibly important role to play. One area that I personally feel very strongly about – and where action is being taken – is in making sure that children are protected from harmful content.

Now I know you’ll be discussing these issues later this morning. I think it is important to stress that real strides are being made through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. UKCCIS is a pioneering body – it was one of the first organisations of its kind in the world – bringing together the key players in child internet safety and working with industry to give parents the tools they need to protect children: ISP delivered parental control solutions, device level solutions, and greater support and education than ever before.

So real progress is being made, but we certainly aren’t making the mistake of thinking the work is done. We are working with industry to implement our new system, where every parent will be prompted to protect their child online. Protection will automatically be on if parents don’t make choices. No other Government has taken such radical steps before. And once this is in place, Britain will have the most robust internet child protection measures of any country in the world – bar none.

To support this, next week I will be meeting with key Internet Service Providers, the Internet Service Provider Association, Reg Bailey and Claire Perry, MP – the Prime Minister’s advisor on preventing the commercialisation and sexualisation of children. We want to review what has been achieved so far – and there is a lot – and to make sure ISPs do more, particularly in terms of raising awareness of parental controls.

There are other issues of consumer protection, the biggest issue in my postbag from the public is probably silent calls, unsolicited marketing calls and spam text messages. Whilst direct marketing is a legitimate industry there is a need for better enforcement of the regulations to stop unwanted calls and texts. We have given enforcement bodies the teeth they need to do their work – through the powers to issue fines of up to £2m for silent calls and £500k for unsolicited marketing, changes that we introduced over the last couple of years – and it is good to see Ofcom and the ICO are using these powers.

But much more needs to be done. The split of responsibilities between the Telephone Preference Service, Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office is confusing. The regulators need to bite, and bite hard, so that there is effective enforcement. So we want to give greater clarity to consumers about who to turn to, and critically I want to see more effective enforcement by the regulators to move with greater precision and speed in targeting rogue players.

The final consumer issue I want to touch on is personal data. Data is absolutely crucial to the success of on-line businesses. It is absolutely crucial that we strike the right balance between the protection of consumers – making sure that they know how their data is being used – and the ability of business to use this data to deliver products and services that people want. We took exactly this approach when I fought hard to ensure that the e-privacy directive achieved its aim of flagging cookies to web users, without stifling innovation.

We now face the same challenge with the EU Data protection proposals. We welcome the call to update these provisions. But we want to work hard with our colleagues.

I will work hard with our colleagues at the Ministry of Justice to ensure our approach to negotiations reflects the concerns of industry. At the same time it is important that industry can show that it understands the concerns that have been expressed about user privacy and make real efforts to work with our colleagues in Europe to address those concerns. Simply balking at the proposals on the table is not good enough, this is not going to go away so we need to work together to ensure what we end up with is practical for business, and delivers real safeguards for consumers.

We are all living more connected lives, relying more on the communications industry to socialise, share, work, shop. And in this context we want everyone to feel confident that they understand and are able to manage their privacy, their interactions, their finance and their data online and across the different platforms. And we want to make sure that where this doesn’t happen people know which bodies they can turn to for support.

Getting the framework right here – the right balance between regulation and industry action – is vital. Not only is it good for consumers, it is good for business and it is good for growth.

Conclusion

We as a Government don’t have all the answers for all the challenges this sector will face over the next decade. In fact I am saying the opposite.

What we need is a regime that is responsive and flexible enough to regulate a fast paced environment. What we need is for these industries to continue to innovate and to take responsibility. This will give us a framework that is able to support growth and support the people of the UK in an increasingly interconnected world. This means the best infrastructure. This means we support world leading content. This means consumer confidence in this brave new world.

I’m looking forward to sharing the Paper with you all, and even more so to working with you to see this realised.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Minister Ed Vaizey to the Future of Library Services Conference in London on 28th June 2012.

I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak at today’s conference. This is a great opportunity to talk about the thriving library service that we have in England.

A library service made up of more than 3,300 libraries;

A library service in which councils invest £900 million a year;

A library service which continues to innovate and develop;

A library service that continues to open libraries and refurbish library buildings.

For example: Southwark’s new library in Canada Water is a state-of-the-art facility for the community, and just one of several new libraries in the borough; Oldham’s impressive Fitton Hill Library and Neighbourhood Centre has just opened; and Worcestershire is opening The Hive – the first ever joint public and academic library in the country.

Add to that significant refurbishment programmes – from Nottinghamshire to Newham – and you get a taste of the good news out there.
And Birmingham is planning to open the biggest library in Europe next year, costing almost £200 million.

And thanks to stories like this, we learned from today’s Taking Part survey that library visits remain stable – they are not declining. I know that the library service is facing challenges. But I want to get the good news out, and present a more balanced picture.

Arts Council: a development agency for libraries

As I often point out, libraries are emphatically a local authority service, and are fully funded by local government and run by local government. Nevertheless, they can benefit from having a national development agency to push innovation and best practice.

And our decision to give responsibility for libraries to the Arts Council (ACE) will provide exactly that service.

The move unites cultural policy with library policy for the first time, as was envisaged in the 1950s debates that led to the Public Libraries and Museums Act of 1964. It builds on the work ACE already does – funding important organisations that support libraries, such as the Booktrust, the Reading Agency, and Writing West Midlands to name just a few.

This also includes financial support. The Government and the Arts Council have already invested more than £500,000 to support development work by library authorities.

Today I am delighted to announce that the Arts Council will be allocating £6 milllion from its Grants for the Arts programme over the next two years for library authorities to lead projects working with artists, arts organisations and other cultural organisations on arts and cultural activity through libraries.

This fund will aim to stimulate ambitious, innovative partnerships between libraries and artists and arts organisations. It will help raise the ambition and expectation of libraries, and represents a significant commitment by the Arts Council to their new role.

As well as supporting libraries with funding for programmes, it’s also important that we identify library authorities that may need specific help to address particular issues.

Today I am therefore also pleased to announce an initiative with CIPFA to identify areas where individual authorities might be able to improve.

CIPFA’s new ‘comparative profile reports’ have been developed to benchmark local council services against comparable authorities, or “nearest neighbours” as CIPFA calls them. My Department will be commissioning reports on all library authorities in England, which will be available in December this year.

My Department will use the reports to look for ways in which we can help local authorities. I must emphasise that this is not an attempt to sanction local authorities and certainly not a return to top-down, inflexible library standards. But if we see wildly diverging opening hours between two similar authorities with similar budgets and infrastructure, there will be an opportunity to ask questions and look at how opening hours could be improved.

Or if one authority is spending twice as much on book stock as another, but providing a similar number of books, we can ask if there are ways to improve efficiency in the authority in question.

I should also say that these reports will be publicly available, allowing MPs, councillors and other interested members of the public the chance to see how their local service measures up, and to ask well-informed questions – and also make well-informed suggestions for improvement.

Libraries in the Digital Age

Library buildings are and remain important. And in the digital age, paradoxically, a bricks and mortar service is still extremely valuable.

The People’s Network put in place by Chris Smith made a big difference to libraries. Millions of people now use their library to access the internet. I heard recently that the Society of Chief Librarians’ target to get 500,000 people on line for the first time by the end of 2012 was actually passed in April this year.

Now we need to go further. In the age of the smartphone and tablet, wifi is becoming an essential aspect of every-day life, and it is an ambition of mine for wifi to be in every library in England by 2015. So I’ve asked my officials to explore how best to achieve this, working with colleagues across government.

Working Across Whitehall

Government support for libraries can be more effective if it works across Departments.

We are now working with the Department for Education to provide automatic library membership for primary school pupils, to encourage them to use their local library – a wonderful idea put forward by children’s author Michael Rosen.

In September we will pilot different approaches to test the most effective ways of supporting children and their families to use their libraries and read more widely.

And libraries have been a key part of the Cabinet Office’s Race Online 2012 initiative to get the digitally excluded on-line. Libraries’ staff and volunteers saw 2.5 million people getting online, which is a very real demonstration of the role they play in tackling the digital divide. Arts Council and SCL are currently working with the Post Office to support the Government’s programme to get more people using government services online. This approach will be piloted in Birmingham this autumn.

And the Cabinet Office has recently awarded £127,000 from the Social Action Fund to the Reading Agency to support teenage volunteers in libraries.

So more Departments are getting the message that libraries can help them deliver their services more effectively – whether it’s education, digital literacy or volunteering.

Volunteers and Community Libraries

Libraries have always benefited from the work of volunteers. And volunteers, particularly those who have retired but want to remain active in their community, have also benefited.

I would also like to pay tribute to the growing number of young people who support the Summer Reading Challenge. Last year there were over 3000 young volunteers and we are expecting a significant increase in that number this year.

This is a really good example of where volunteers add value to a scheme and also where they gain a really valuable work experience.

Volunteers are crucial to the library service. But let me state again, as I have so often, they are not a substitute for expertise of professional librarians, as well as other people trained in specific aspects of the library service.

I am also pleased to see community supported libraries coming into play, particularly where a local authority is planning to close a building. Community run libraries are contributing to a diverse picture of libraries located within village halls, pubs, shops, churches, day care centres, tourist information centres and enterprise hubs.

Community managed and community supported libraries will never replace the extensive network of council run libraries we enjoy. But they do provide an important additional element of provision, and an important alternative model which can add to the rich variety of services already available.

It is precisely because of this that my Department is currently working with the Arts Council, LGA, Defra, and DCLG to create a new information resource for authorities considering establishing community supported or community managed libraries in their areas. It is important that local authorities and community groups work together to ensure that library assets transferred to communities are sustainable in the long term.

Funding Context

Let me take this opportunity to state once again, that libraries are and will remain a statutory service. The challenge for local authorities therefore is the provision of that statutory service in a tight financial climate.

The Arts Council’s Envisioning research will help Councils think about what their service should look like in the future. And as a highlight of best practice, the LGA yesterday launched an invaluable publication ‘Local Solutions for Future Local Library Services’ which – as the name suggests – is packed full of useful case studies, some of which I’ve referred to today. It picks up on areas where libraries can improve the delivery of the service – and offers tangible solutions.

Library Closures and service reviews

I have made it clear from the moment I became a Minister that no library authority should contemplate closing libraries unless they have conducted a proper review of their library service.

While some local authorities have put forward controversial proposals since 2010, all of them have conducted a library review, as I made clear to them they would have to do when I took office. I have no doubt that the efforts of library campaigners have also brought about welcome changes in some of the more extreme proposals put forward.

Nevertheless, I am always mindful that libraries are a local service, paid for by local taxpayers. As far as possible, local democracy not Whitehall diktat should have an impact on how they are shaped. A library inquiry is a power of last resort – it has only ever been used once in fifty years. It is not a tool to be used lightly, or for political expediency

A figure of 600 library closures is regularly quoted in the media – but it is very wide of the mark. A truer picture of building closures would be about a tenth of that.

But even while there have been closures, sometimes services merge or move to community-management, and it’s important that we are able to have an intelligent debate about this. And it’s also important to remember that many libraries are also opening.

Conclusion

I remain resolutely optimistic about library services. I have never, even in opposition, depicted the library service as being in crisis.

I look to a future where:

The Arts Council acts as a development agency for libraries;

Libraries can access funds and support from the Arts Council

Poorly performing authorities are identified and helped to improve;

Key initiatives can be taken forward by central government, such as wi-fi or automatic enrolment for school children;

Government and local authorities understand what a vital resource libraries are across a whole range of activities.

But we must always remember that libraries are a local service – free to serve their local community, to innovate and adapt to local needs.

I hope you will join me in continuing to spread the good news, and to highlight the excellent service provided by so many people throughout England.

Below is the text of the speech made by the Minister of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, held at the State of the Arts Conference in London on Thursday 10th February 2011.

Good morning.

The State of the Arts conference has, in one year, established itself as the most important occasion in the calendar for the discussion of cultural policy. So today is a great opportunity for me to set out where we are now and what Government sees as the challenges ahead.

I want to take the opportunity today to make the case for the importance of the creative ecology – an alliance between the subsidised and commercial arts; the professional and the voluntary arts; and the arts and the creative industries.

I want to argue that arts policy should take this creative ecology into account, in order to see the bigger picture and the wider opportunities. We are a hugely creative nation. We have tough times to face, and we will get through them if we face them together.

But the great strength of the arts is its ecology – subsidised arts feeding the commercial arts, the voluntary arts and the amateur arts ensuring the creative spirit is present in every corner of the nation.

And what creative spirit it is. Whether it’s Rory Kinnear’s Hamlet, Akram Khan’s Gnosis or the Halle’s Mahler season. Or whether it’s Newcastle’s new City Library, Burberry’s collection last year or James Dyson’s beautiful bladeless fan that’s sitting in my office.

We should never forget the UK is still revered around the world for its culture and its creativity. Tough times can make us think the glass is half empty. My view is that our cup is still plentiful.

Funding

Nevertheless, much of the debate about the arts focuses solely on the level of grant funding, so let me begin by talking about money. It’s worth reminding people – and some still seem oblivious to this fact – that last year’s settlement took place against the background of the largest budget deficit in peacetime history.

The economic situation means that we are borrowing £120 million a day; this is more than the British Museum, the Tate and the National Gallery receive in a year; one pound in every four that we spend is borrowed; only Spain and Ireland have deficits greater than ours.

We never pretended that we could maintain arts funding at current levels. No one who was being honest about the state of the public finances could possibly have argued that. And anyone who pretends that it would have been possible is being at best disingenuous. So although I am under no illusions that these next few years are going to be tough, I believe we have done all we can to help.

Despite a decrease in grant-in-aid, an increase in Lottery funding means the Arts Council’s budget will fall by just 11 per cent over the next four years;

Core funding for arts organisations funded by the Arts Council has been protected, and will fall by less than 15 per cent over the Parliament;

Funding for our national museums will fall by just 15 per cent, and the decision to release £143 million in reserves will make a significant difference to many of their finances;

Renaissance funding will fall by just 15 per cent. And the increase in Heritage Lottery Funding will help here as well – more than a third of HLF’s grants go to museums;

Lottery funding for film will increase by 60 per cent, from about £27 million to about £43 million;

In order to help protect the frontline, DCMS is also reducing its costs by 50 per cent.

And £80 million over four years to be matched by private giving to boost philanthropy

Funding across the arts will be more than £1billion in 2011/12. That’s still a hugely significant sum. It’s broadly in line with the sums of money that have been received over the last fifteen years, since the creation of the Lottery.

It’s interesting to see that combined Lottery and grant-in-aid funding for the Arts Council has only beaten 1997 levels in two subsequent years – and in each of those years by less than one per cent. So let’s not pretend that we are moving from feast to famine.

We have also ensured that we have simplified the landscape. So we have moved responsibilities from the MLA to the Arts Council, to create a single home for the arts, regional museums and libraries, giving the Arts Council a much stronger voice to make the case for culture at a local and regional level. We have created a single home for British film in the British Film Institute. And we are also establishing Creative England to support the creative industries throughout the country.

But at the same time we recognise the challenge faced in other parts of the public sector. I know that one of the biggest worries at the moment is local authority funding. The Government is passionately committed to devolving power to the local level, to locally elected officials and to communities.

On the whole, local government knows the needs of local people far better than a central government department ever can. And while I might not agree with every decision made by every local authority, I absolutely respect their right to make that decision themselves. The last thing the arts need is a Whitehall Minister demanding changes to every decision in a local authority that he or she doesn’t agree with. I know a lot of local councillors and that would be hugely counter-productive.

The challenge for the arts is to work with their local authorities.

Persuade a Council leader that the local library or the local theatre or the local arts centre is a fundamental part, not just of the arts in their area, but their entire community, and that it can deliver more than just an arts service, it can deliver health, education, social services and act as a hub for the community, and you’re three-quarters of the way there.

The good local authorities get this already. For all the bad news I also hear good news in places like Newcastle and Gateshead and Reading, working to join all their services up, thinking of the arts as part of a much wider offer to their communities. The challenge we jointly face is how to help the good ones share that expertise with the ones who are still struggling, and help you to win over sceptical chief executives and councillors right across the country.

The Future of Arts Policy

I have often commented about how fortunate we are in this country to have some of the most inspiring arts leaders and performers in the world. Through our settlement, we have secured funding for our leading arts organisations, free entrance to our national museums, and core funding for our regional museums.

So there is an argument for allowing the arts to get on with it on the basis of their four-year settlement. In terms of who gets what, we’ve already done this. We’ve given the Arts Council their allocation and we trust them to make the right decisions on how best to deploy it. And we trust artists to use that money and do what they do best, create great art that has the greatest impact on the widest audience.

But there are several key areas where we have decided to intervene, in order to make a long-term difference.

Philanthropy

In December last year, we announced our ten point strategy for increasing philanthropy across the country. This will focus on greater public recognition, better long term cultivation of donors, more planned giving, harnessing new technologies to boost fundraising and possible tax changes that will make it easier to give to arts institutions.

DCMS and the Arts Council have announced £80 million of new money for a series of match funding schemes over the next five years, beginning in April 2011.

It’s important that that matched fund is targeted and used to help those organisations that find it most difficult to fund-raise – those outside London, those that are smaller, those from arts forms that traditionally find it more difficult to attract philanthropy. We also want to use that fund to kick-start endowments.

There are two quick points to make here. First, this is a long-term strategy. If you’re talking about endowments, you won’t see the fruit of your work for many years. And secondly, the emphasis we place on philanthropy is emphatically not with a view to replacing core funding.

Leadership and Innovation

The other great opportunity for the arts is in leadership and innovation. The past decade has seen some enormous leaps in how we think about leadership in our sectors. The consistently amazing support of Dame Vivien Duffield and the work of Hilary Carty and the Cultural Leadership Programme have brought the importance of good leadership to the front of everyone’s minds and have inspired a new generation of exciting, innovative cultural leaders.

But not only do we need to keep thinking about where the next generation of leaders comes from, and the next after that, but we need to think about the other kinds of opportunities that we need to grasp to continue to flourish.

The rapid changes in technology provide just such an opportunity. It is vital that arts organisations take advantage of new technology, as a new way to engage with audiences, and dare I say it, even make money.

Through technology, arts organisations can really begin to understand where their audiences come from, who they are failing to reach, to push out content, to become broadcasters and content providers.

Michael Kaiser from the Kennedy Center wrote a piece last week for the Huffington Post about some of the themes I have talked about. In seven simple points he nails exactly why technology has, and will continue to revolutionise the way we go about our lives and what that means for artists and for audiences.

As he stated: “…to most arts leaders I meet, new technologies are viewed as a threat. They are perceived as competitors for our audiences’ time and attention rather than our biggest allies. Arts organizations have been slow to exploit the power of new technology and cling to older, more expensive techniques that are not as effective. We are clearly doing something wrong. We must find ways to embrace the new technologies. We need to apply the creativity we bring to our stages and galleries to the use of these new tools. The business world, entertainment industry and sports world are all doing so. If we don’t make a committed effort, we will fall hopelessly behind and the arts will lose their place in our society.”

I couldn’t agree more. Far be it for me to accuse the arts world of being conservative, but there are clearly opportunities to be had here.

That’s why I’m delighted that the Arts Council and NESTA are establishing a new joint fund to support all types of innovation right across the creative and cultural sector.

The new programme will take the people with the most innovative ideas on leadership, business models, technology, content creation, fundraising and audience development, from right the way across the creative industries, providing seed funding for some of the best and help them share their learning. It will also inform a much wider programme of digital innovation that the Arts Council plan to launch in the spring.

The Arts Council has also announced its partnership with the BBC, working with the BBC Academy with its media and digital experience to support the development of the arts sector’s media production skills.

The partnerships with NESTA and the BBC show where the Arts Council, through a network of new partnerships, can add even greater value for the sector. I want the Arts Council to be an organisation that is a source of advice and expertise for everyone who works or participates in the arts – not just for the organisations it funds, but right the way across the creative ecology.

I want the Arts Council to work with other organisations as well – why not the Technology Strategy Board, the BFI and Creative England? I also want to see them learn from the huge number of other creative organisations who need no encouragement in developing innovative partnerships across the creative industries, but also to help those who lack the resources, the knowledge or the guidance to do the same and who are trapped in what often still looks like a landscape of individual silos.

The work the Arts Council is doing with the BBC, with NESTA and with others is designed to address this, and marks the start of a new focus from government on innovation in the arts.

Cultural Education

As well as developing new technologies and our capacity to innovate, we also need to develop the audiences of the future. Earlier this week Darren Henley published his review of music education. I’m delighted that as a result we have secured funding for music education in schools, with £82.5m committed next year. He made a number of key recommendations which will strengthen music education for the future and we will be setting out our full response to these in a National Plan for Music Education later in the year.

I think the strength of the policy that the Plan will address is that it is more than just about the money. It is the desire to bring rigour and accountability to public investment– a determination to join up random initiatives to create a coherent whole, and not to accept second best.

So it should be with cultural education. We have therefore asked Darren to carry out a second review to look at the best way of ensuring that our children have access to a solid cultural education, bringing together the wide range of opportunities available in the arts, heritage, film and museums.

I hope that you will all engage in the debate about how best to support cultural education and support him in this important work.

Conclusion

Our strategy for the arts is very simple. We want to help all the arts – those that receive subsidy, those that are purely commercial, those that are voluntary and amateur.

We aim to do this

By securing core funding for the arts, as we have done;

By expanding the funding base for the arts;

By reinvigorating philanthropy;

By focusing on how best to support innovation, whether that’s technological, leadership, artistic or business innovation;

By encouraging new alliances between the Arts Council and other bodies across the creative industries;

By helping artists and creative organisations do the same, whether that’s by brokering relationships or sharing expertise;

And by supporting high quality music and cultural education in schools.

I think the next few years provide huge opportunities for the arts, and Government’s role is to support you in taking advantage of them. I’m looking forward to a discussion about how best we can do that.

Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on 7 October 2015 to the Conservative Party Conference.

It’s a great privilege for me to deliver my fourth party conference speech as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland…

… and of course I’m delighted that for the very first time, I’m addressing you as part of a majority Conservative government following the election victory which every single pundit and pollster said wasn’t going to happen.

On the 7th May we were given a mandate to govern throughout the whole of our United Kingdom.

We’re doing so as a One Nation government committed to bringing our country together.

That includes Northern Ireland … where we will deliver our manifesto commitments and continue the political journey first begun by a Conservative Government twenty years ago.

That’s a journey towards a more peaceful, stable and prosperous Northern Ireland … where working people have the chance to get on to the best of their ability, regardless of their community background…

… a Northern Ireland which is secure within the UK on the basis of consent … and which we want to be a place no longer defined by its divided past, but instead by its shared future.

This time last year I stood before you and acknowledged that the devolved institutions were in difficulty …

… that political relationships were being damaged by disagreements on matters like flags, parading and the past

… and that a budget dispute threatened the whole future of the Stormont Executive.

My realistic assessment was the time had come for a fresh round of cross party talks …. and these began shortly afterwards with the five main Northern Ireland parties, and the Irish Government on matters falling within their responsibility.

The talks ran for 11 weeks and there were many times when it seemed that a successful outcome was unachievable….

… but after a final 25 hour long stretch of negotiations, the Stormont House Agreement was reached on 23rd December.

That Agreement has been widely acknowledged as a landmark achievement, including by the President of the United States … and we can take pride in the fact that it was a Conservative-led Government which secured it.

The Agreement sets out a way to make progress on some of the most difficult issues facing Northern Ireland today … many of which have eluded previous attempts at negotiation.

It provides a clear path to putting the finances of the Stormont Executive on a sustainable footing for the future.

It offers a way forward on flags and parades.

It would establish broadly based institutions to help address the legacy of the past … offering better outcomes for victims and survivors … institutions which are to be rooted in principles of fairness, balance and impartiality.

And it contains measures to make devolution work better … including an official opposition at Stormont for which we Conservatives have long argued.

All of this was underpinned by a generous funding package that would give the Executive £2 billion in extra spending power.

But as that great peace process veteran, George Mitchell, reminded me earlier this year … getting an agreement is about 20% of the job ….

That’s a change that could have a genuinely transformative impact on jobs and prosperity in Northern Ireland because of the land border it shares with a low tax jurisdiction.

To take forward much needed public sector reform, we’ve released funding for the voluntary redundancy scheme contained in the Agreement.

And we will soon be introducing a Bill at Westminster to deliver the new institutions envisaged on the past.

Today I want to give you these assurances in relation to that legislation.

As our Northern Ireland manifesto made very clear …

… as we look back at the history of the Troubles, we in this party will never accept any form of equivalence between the police officers and soldiers who put their lives on the line to protect people from harm and defend the rule of law… and the terrorists who waged a thirty year campaign of violence to inflict harm and subvert the rule of law.

We will never accept any attempt to re-write history or legitimise the actions of those who pursued their aims by the bullet or the bomb.

And we will not countenance any form of amnesty for those suspected of criminal behaviour.

Under this Conservative Government the law will always take its course without fear or favour … and the Bill we introduce will be wholly consistent with that fundamental principle.

And I have to say that many will view with grave concern the fact that, as recently as August, the leader the Labour Party have just elected was asked five times in an interview to condemn IRA terrorism and five times failed to do so.

And while the Shadow Chancellor might have issued a carefully worded apology for the hurt caused by his comments on the IRA … I say it’s time he retracted in full his call to honour IRA terrorists and admit that he was entirely wrong ever to have made that statement in the first place.

The Conservative manifesto commits us to working with all parties to ensure everyone fulfils their obligations under the Stormont House Agreement.

But progress in the Northern Ireland Executive stalled in March when the two nationalist parties withdrew their support for crucial provisions on finance and welfare reform.

We are clear … the Government will not fund a more generous welfare system in Northern Ireland than it does in the rest of the UK.

There is no more money.

Without welfare reform and efficiency measures to deal with in-year pressures, the Executive’s budget simply does not add up.

Pouring millions of pounds every week into an unreformed, high cost, welfare system in Northern Ireland means less and less money available for front line public services.

As a direct result … NHS waiting times are already getting longer and the pressure will only increase in the weeks to come.

The Government cannot stand by and let this situation drag on indefinitely, with Stormont increasingly unable to deliver key public services.

That’s why I have confirmed that we’re prepared to legislate at Westminster for welfare reform in Northern Ireland, if that becomes necessary.

It would be a last resort…. it’s an outcome we’re striving to avoid.

And that is one of the main reasons why we acted swiftly to reconvene the intensive cross party talks now underway once again to try to break the deadlock.

It’s too early to say whether they’ll succeed … though I sense a genuine willingness on all sides to make progress.

But time is short.

Unlike last year, we simply don’t have the luxury of endless long hours of discussions stretching on and on until Christmas.

What’s at stake is not just the credibility of devolved government in Northern Ireland but the survival of devolved government in Northern Ireland.

One only has to look round Europe to see the problems caused when an administration cannot live within its budget and the harsh impact that can have on some of the most vulnerable in society.

Replaying that scenario in Northern Ireland would stretch political relationships within the Executive well beyond breaking point.

There’s a real risk that those taking a hard line against welfare reform will end up running the devolved institutions into collapse as collateral damage.

A return to direct rule would be a severe setback after everything that’s been achieved over recent years … and we are doing all we can to prevent it.

What Northern Ireland needs is an effective devolved power-sharing government that is capable of making the kind of difficult choices on spending priorities, welfare and public sector efficiency with which more or less every other administration in the developed world has had to grapple in the years since the crash of 2008.

That’s what we’re striving to achieve.

But these talks aren’t just about implementing the Agreement … crucial though that is.

In recent months the fallout from two brutal murders in Belfast has highlighted the continued presence of paramilitary organisations … and the involvement of some of their members in criminality and organised crime.

Let’s be clear.

Paramilitary organisations have no place in a democratic society.

They were never justified in the past.

They are not justified today.

And they should disband.

So a key aim of the talks is to find a way to bring an end to this continuing blight on Northern Ireland society.

These are very serious matters … as is the continuing terrorist threat from dissident republican groupings who maintain both lethal intent and the capacity to mount lethal attacks.

And I would like to put on record today the deeply felt gratitude of this Government, and this party, for the outstanding work done by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in defending the community from terrorist attack.

There is so much to be positive about in today’s Northern Ireland.

After being hit hard by Labour’s great recession … the economy there is growing again … expanding opportunity for hard working people.

There over 32,000 more people in work than when we came to office in 2010 … all now given the security of a pay packet to support their families.

Belfast is one of the most attractive destinations in the country for Foreign Direct Investment.

Year after year, Northern Ireland’s young people outperform England and Wales at GCSE and A level.

And last month county Fermanagh was officially named as the happiest place in the United Kingdom.

So in conclusion … I consider myself to be immensely lucky to have been given the chance to serve as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland….

… and whilst there are times when the situation looks grim and the divisions seem impossible to bridge ….

… there three reasons why I approach this latest round of cross party talks with hope … and even a glimmer of optimism.

Firstly, I have an outstanding team around me … including Ben Wallace, Andrew Dunlop, Charles Elphicke and Rebecca Harris … who grapple with all the many challenges thrown at them with both dedication and enthusiasm.

Secondly, I report to a Prime Minister whose very real affection for Northern Ireland and its people means that he has been unstinting in his support for all the painstaking work needed to keep the political process up and running despite the bumps in the road of the last few years.

And thirdly … and most importantly of all … I believe that Northern Ireland’s leaders do want to make the political settlement work … and they do want to find a way to resolve the two crucial questions about which I have addressed this conference today.

Success or failure over the coming days lies in their hands.

They have rightly received praise around the world for all that they achieved in reaching the 1998 peace settlement which has transformed life in Northern Ireland for the better.

If we are to build a brighter, more secure future for everyone, now is the time to show that same spirit again.

I believe that they can do it … a resolution is possible … I will be working with perseverance and determination to see that happen.

But we also know what’s right about it – it’s the biggest single market in the world.

Now, some people say: “take what we’ve got and put up with it”.

Others say: “just walk away from the whole thing”.

I say: no. This is Britain. We don’t duck fights. We get stuck in. We fix problems.

That’s how we kept our border checkpoints when others decided to take theirs down.

It’s how we kept the pound when others went head first into the Euro.

Because we do things our way.

We get rebates. We get out of bailouts.

But do you know what? It’s not just what we get out of, it’s what we get Europe into.

Who do you think got Europe to open trade talks with America, which would be the biggest trade deal in our history?

Who do you think got Europe to agree to sanctions on Iran, which brought that country to the negotiating table?

Us. Britain. We did.

Believe me, I have no romantic attachment to the European Union and its institutions.

I’m only interested in two things: Britain’s prosperity and Britain’s influence.

That’s why I’m going to fight hard in this renegotiation – so we can get a better deal and the best of both worlds.

Let me give you one example.

When we joined the European Union we were told that it was about going into a common market, rather than the goal that some had for “ever closer union”.

Let me put this very clearly: Britain is not interested in “ever closer union” – and I will put that right.

ECONOMIC SECURITY

A Greater Britain needs a dynamic economy.

Today, it’s a beacon in an uncertain world…

…we’ve got more foreign investment flooding into our country than anywhere else in Europe – anywhere in the world except for America and China.

But if anyone thinks the battle on the economy is won, they need to think again. The battle has only just begun.

We still need to find savings and produce more; still need to become more competitive; still need to make the most of our entire country – and build the Northern Powerhouse.

And all at a time when our opponents have given up any sensible, reasonable, rational arguments on the economy.

We live in a country where the main opposition party – let’s not forget, the alternative government – believes in nationalising industries without compensation, jacking up taxes to 60 per cent of people’s income, and printing money.

There’s an academic called Richard Murphy. He’s the Labour Party’s new economics guru, and the man behind their plan to print more money.

He gave an interview a few weeks ago. He was very frank. He admitted that Labour’s plan would cause a “sterling crisis”, but to be fair…

…he did add, and I quote, that it “would pass very quickly”.

Well, that’s alright then.

His book is actually called “The Joy of Tax”. I’ve read it. It’s got 64 positions – and they’re all wrong.

This is actually serious.

I tell you: our party’s success in growing our economy and winning the economic arguments has never been more vital.

Nothing less than the security of every single family in our country depends on it.

And as we do that, I know that we will have on our side not just the British people, not just British business…

…but our Iron Chancellor, George Osborne.

You know what makes me most angry about Labour?

It’s not just that their arguments are wrong; it’s the self-righteous way they make them.

The deficit-deniers, who go around saying we’re hurting the poor.

Hang on a second.

Who gets hurt when governments lose control of spending and interest rates go through the roof?

Who gets hurt when you waste money on debt interest and have to cut the NHS?

Who gets hurt when taxes go up and businesses start firing rather than hiring?

No – not the rich…

…it’s poor people, working people.

Yes, the very people Labour claim to be for.

Well let’s just remember: Labour ideas don’t help the poor, they hurt the poor.

That’s right, Labour: you’re not for working people, but hurting people.

If you want a lecture about poverty, ask Labour.

If you want something done about it, come to us, the Conservatives.

There’s another argument we need to win.

There are some people who understand the deficit needs to come down, but don’t get why we need a surplus.

I’ll tell you why.

I don’t stand here like a former Prime Minister once did and say I have abolished boom and bust.

We can’t just be thinking about today, we should be thinking about the rainy days that could come – just like a family does.

They put something aside, take out the insurance plan, pay off some of the mortgage when they have something spare.

That’s what we should do as a country – making sure we are ready to cope with future crises.

There’s a word for those who say live for today, forget about tomorrow: it’s selfish.

So let the message go out: if you work hard, want to get on, want more money at the end of the month…

…the party for you is right here in this hall.

But being out of work is only one of the causes we must tackle.

Children in care are today almost guaranteed to live in poverty.

84 per cent leave school without five good GCSEs.

70 per cent of prostitutes were once in care.

And tragically, care leavers are four times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else.

These children are in our care; we, the state, are their parents – and what are we setting them up for…

…the dole, the streets, an early grave?

I tell you: this shames our country and we will put it right.

Just as we said to failing schools, “do a better job with our children or we will send new leaders in”, so we will say to poorly performing social services, “improve or be taken over”.

Just as we got the best graduates teaching at our most difficult schools, let’s get our brightest and best to the frontline of social work.

But we must also stop children needing to be in care at all.

When we came to office, the adoption rate in our country was frankly a scandal.

It has gone up. Our Adoption Bill will help it increase still further.

But there’s so much more to do.

So let us in this hall say to all those children desperate for a family, and all those families yearning for a child:

We, the Conservatives, we are the ones who will bring you together.

There’s another service run by the state that all too often fails and entrenches poverty.

Prison.

Now I believe if you’ve committed a crime, punishment must follow.

And when it’s serious enough, that punishment must mean prison.

Let’s not forget, since we came to office, crime is down by a quarter.

But the system is still not working.

Half of criminals offend within a year of being released.

Nearly half go into prison with no qualifications; many come out with none either.

And all the problems that may have led them to that life – drug addiction, mental health problems, childhood abuse – remain unchanged.

We have got to get away from the sterile lock-em-up or let-em-out debate, and get smart about this.

When prisoners are in jail, we have their full attention for months at a time – so let’s treat their problems, educate them, put them to work.

When we restrict someone’s freedom outside prison, we can make sure they’re working and paying taxes, rather than spending £30,000 a year keeping them in a cell – so where it makes sense, let’s use electronic tags to help keep us safe and help people go clean.

And when our prisons are relics from the time of Dickens – it’s time to sell them off and build new ones that actually work.

This is going to be a big area of social reform in the next five years. And I have just the man for the job.

The man who takes on every vested interest and gives everyone a chance…

…the man who began the great transformation of our education system and is now going to do the same for prisons…

…yes, the great Conservative reformer, Michael Gove.

OPPORTUNITY

If we tackle the causes of poverty, we can make our country greater.

But there’s another big social problem we need to fix.

In politicians’ speak: a “lack of social mobility”.

In normal language: people unable to rise from the bottom to the top, or even from the middle to the top, because of their background.

Listen to this: Britain has the lowest social mobility in the developed world.

Here, the salary you earn is more linked to what your father got paid than in any other major country.

I’m sorry, for us Conservatives, the party of aspiration, we cannot accept that.

We know that education is the springboard to opportunity.

Our reforms are already working.

More children studying maths and science. More learning coding and engineering. More doing the extra-curricular activities that teach confidence and build character.

Recently, I was at a school in Runcorn. Last year, 53 of their children went off to university. 52 of them were the first ever in their family to do so.

That is why I’m so passionate about academies and free schools:

Head teachers are growing in confidence as they throw off the shackles of local council control…

…raising the aspirations of children, parents, communities.

This movement is sweeping across our country.

So my next ambition is this.

500 new Free Schools.

Every school an academy…

…and yes – Local Authorities running schools a thing of the past.

But let’s be honest.

For too many people, even a good education isn’t enough.

There are other barriers that stand in their way.

Picture this.

You’ve graduated with a good degree.

You send out your CV far and wide.

But you get rejection after rejection.

What’s wrong? It’s not the qualifications or the previous experience.

It’s just two words at the top: first name, surname.

Do you know that in our country today: even if they have exactly the same qualifications, people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get call backs for jobs than people with ethnic-sounding names?

This is a true story.

One young black girl had to change her name to Elizabeth before she got any calls to interviews.

That, in 21st century Britain, is disgraceful.

We can talk all we want about opportunity, but it’s meaningless unless people are really judged equally.

Think about it like this.

Opportunity doesn’t mean much to a British Muslim if he walks down the street and is abused for his faith.

Opportunity doesn’t mean much to a black person constantly stopped and searched by the police because of the colour of their skin.

Opportunity doesn’t mean much to a gay person rejected for a job because of the person they love.

It doesn’t mean much to a disabled person prevented from doing what they’re good at because of who they are.

I’m a dad of two daughters – opportunity won’t mean anything to them if they grow up in a country where they get paid less because of their gender rather than how good they are at their work.

The point is this: you can’t have true opportunity without real equality.

And I want our party to get this right.

Yes us, the party of the fair chance; the party of the equal shot…

…the party that doesn’t care where you come from, but only where you’re going…

…us, the Conservatives, I want us to end discrimination and finish the fight for real equality in our country today.

EXTREMISM

Tackling the causes of poverty. Fighting for real opportunity.

And there’s one more big social reform in our mission to rebuild Britain as an even greater country.

We need to confront – and I mean really confront – extremism.

When I read what some young people born and brought up in this country are doing, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Girls not much older than my eldest daughter, swapping loving family homes and straight-A futures for a life of servitude under ISIL, in a land of violence and oppression.

Boys who could do anything they wanted in Britain – who have benefitted from all this country stands for – instead ending up in the desert wielding a knife.

This ideology, this diseased view of the world, has become an epidemic – infecting minds from the mosques of Mogadishu to the bedrooms of Birmingham.

And here’s what we need to do.

One: tear up the narrative that says Muslims are persecuted and the West deserves what it gets.

Never mind that it’s Britain and America behind the biggest effort to help the victims of Syria.

Who is ISIL murdering more than anyone else? Muslims.

No-one should get away with this politics of grievance anymore.

Two: take on extremism in all its forms, the violent and non-violent.

People don’t become terrorists from a standing start.

It begins with preachers telling them that Christians and Muslims can’t live together.

It moves to people in their community saying the security services were responsible for 7/7.

It progresses to a website telling them how to wage jihad, fight in Syria, and defeat the West.

And before you know it, a young British boy, barely 17, is strapping bombs to his body and blowing himself up in Iraq.

We have to stop it at the start – stop this seed of hatred even being planted in people’s minds, let alone allowing it to grow.

Three: we need to tackle segregation.

There are parts of Britain today where you can get by without ever speaking English or meeting anyone from another culture.

Zoom in and you’ll see some institutions that actually help incubate these divisions.

Did you know, in our country, there are some children who spend several hours each day at a Madrassa?

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with children learning about their faith, whether it’s at Madrassas, Sunday Schools or Jewish Yeshivas.

But in some Madrassas we’ve got children being taught that they shouldn’t mix with people of other religions; being beaten; swallowing conspiracy theories about Jewish people.

These children should be having their minds opened, their horizons broadened…

…not having their heads filled with poison and their hearts filled with hate.

So I can announce this today:

If an institution is teaching children intensively, then whatever its religion, we will, like any other school, make it register so it can be inspected.

And be in no doubt: if you are teaching intolerance, we will shut you down.

This goes to a wider truth.

For too long, we’ve been so frightened of causing offence that we haven’t looked hard enough at what is going on in our communities.

This is passive tolerance. And I’ll tell you where it leads:

To children, British children, going to Pakistan in the summer holidays, before they’ve even started their GCSEs, and forced to marry a man they’ve never met…

…children, British children, having their genitals mutilated, not just in a clinic in Lagos but the backstreets in Britain.

This passive tolerance has turned us into a less integrated country; it’s put our children in danger. It is unforgivable.

So let me say it right here: no more passive tolerance in Britain.

We’ve passed the laws – now I want them enforced.

People who organise forced marriages – I want them prosecuted.

Parents who take their children for FGM – I want them arrested.

And as we do that, we shouldn’t just be saying what’s wrong with these practices; we should be saying what’s right with Britain.

Freedom. Democracy. Equality. These are precious.

People fought for them – many died for them…

…in the trenches, a century ago; on the beaches, 30 years later…

…in the Suffragettes; in Gay Pride.

Half the world is crying out for these freedoms – they see what we’ve achieved with them.

Free speech – and the best literature in the world.

Freedom of religion – and many faiths living side by side, peacefully.

Free thinking – and the endless advances in medicine and technology that has brought.

A free economy – and a standard of living our grandparents could only have dreamed of.

I want my children – I want all our children – to know they’re part of something big – the proudest multi-racial democracy on earth.

That’s why we’re making sure they learn British history at school.

That’s why we started National Citizen Service to bring different people together.

I want them to grow up proud of our country.

That’s right: less Britain-bashing, more national pride – our way, the Conservative way, the only way to greater days.

CONSERVATIVES

So big battles. Big arguments. A Greater Britain.

Keeping our head as Labour lose theirs.

So I have a message for those who voted for us and those who never have:

If you believe in strong defence, and helping the poorest, most desperate people in the world.

If you want an NHS that’s there for everybody, and schools that stretch our children…

…and you understand none of that is possible without a strong economy.

If you believe we can become the enterprise capital of the world and beat poverty.

If you believe that the fight against extremism is the fight for our existence; and you want this to be the generation that ends discrimination.

If you want these things, the party you need is the party right here.

And it’s never too late.

Bernard Harris from Leicester wrote to me before polling day and said this.

“Aged 82, this is possibly my last election.

“In my life I have foolishly voted Labour, believing it served the working class.

“How wrong I was. Labour is against all I aspire to.

“I am 100 per cent for a United Kingdom, a sound economy, free enterprise, a trading Europe and a decent standard of living.

“Only a Conservative Government will achieve this.”

Bernard, you found the right party – and I want many more to follow in your footsteps.

CONCLUSION

So I believe that we can make this era – these 2010s – a defining decade for our country…

…the turnaround decade…

…one which people will look back on and say: “that’s the time when the tide turned…

…when people no longer felt the current going against them, but working with them.”

We can be that Greater Britain.

Because we know this: nothing is written.

We’ve proved it in schools across our country…

…that the poorest children don’t have to get the worst results – they can get the best.

Over the next five years we will show that the deep problems in our society – they are not inevitable.

That a childhood in care doesn’t have to mean a life of struggle.

That a stint in prison doesn’t mean you’ll get out and do the same thing all over again.

That being black, or Asian, or female, or gay doesn’t mean you’ll be treated differently.

Nothing is written.

And if we’re to be the global success story of the 21st century, we need to write millions of individual success stories.

A Greater Britain – made of greater expectations…

…where renters become homeowners…

…employees become employers…

…a small island becomes an even bigger economy…

…and where extremism is defeated once and for all.

A Greater Britain…

…no more, its people dragged down or held back…

…no more, some children with their noses pressed to the window as they watch the world moving ahead without them.